The First Fourteen Days

I'll start at the beginning, but I'll be brief. Two weeks ago I had one of the worst thirty hour periods in my life: an hour long car ride to Milwaukee, forty five minute at that airport, an hour and a half on the plane to Newark, more than an hour on a shuttle bus to JFK (on which I was the only native English speaker, including the driver), between eight and ten hours in JFK, fourteen hours on that plane, and then at least forty five minutes on a bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem with forty people most of whom I had never met before.

The next few days consisted of a whirlwind of orientations - to Nativ, to Hebrew University, and just to each other - interrupted only by a wonderful and relaxing Shabbat as can only be had in Ir HaKodesh. Since then we have started classes at Hebrew University for what is referred to as a mini-semester. Three weeks in length, it is a chance for those of us from Nativ at HU to improve our Hebrew or, for those with more advanced skill in the language, take a few extra classes on Jewish history. (All of us at HU take a Hebrew class the whole time we are here, but some of us have to take extra Hebrew so that we can all start that class together at roughly the same level.)

This is the back of the building where I'll be living for the whole first semester

My ulpan (Hebrew immersion) class starts at 9:00 AM and doesn't end until 1:15. Fortunately for us there are two breaks, one for half an hour, and one for fifteen minutes. This is more than enough time to walk to the nearest cafeteria to pick up a six-shekel espresso, a necessity when we go to sleep after midnight every night and wake up at 6:30 to shower in time for morning services at 7:15 or 7:00 when we read torah. I cannot wait for the fall semester to start in earnest so that I can get in a little bit more sleep.

Our classes have consumed most of our lives here on Nativ so far, although we are starting to integrate more into life in Jerusalem. The other night there was a Jazz festival in a park not far from where we live, although I ended up going out to Ben-Yehuda st. with some friends instead, seeing as it was a Thursday night which is the beginning of the weekend here, and I needed to go out and blow off a little more steam than I could have at the jazz festival. Not to mention the slight problem of having napped through the beginning, ergo having no one to go with.

This past weekend a large group of Nativers schlepped up to Tiberias for a relaxing kinneret-front shabbat. You'll find out all about that when I post again.